A snake slithered over his hand, cold and smooth. It had no eyes, but its tongue flickered ceaselessly, probing his skin with a stinging touch. A second, and third and fourth, followed; he felt a dozen or more writhing over his legs and the flicking darts of their forked tongues as they investigated him. Adica whimpered softly. He had never seen her truly scared before. Yet when a snake touched the skrolin armband, it hissed, spasming wildly, and at once the blind snakes scattered, leaving them alone.
Alain scrambled up, grabbed Adica by the arm, and they dashed after the hounds just as a volley of arrows and thrown spears clattered into the cavern, accompanied by cries and shouts.
Light rose as the phoenix woke fully, screaming its fury. Two Fingers yanked Adica into the safety of the far passage, tugging her into an alcove cut into the rock. The glare of the beast’s uncanny feathers made the stone walls shudder, and where Alain crouched at the mouth of the narrow alcove, sheltering the others with his body, he could pick out every least sparkling granule in the ancient walls carved so long ago from the stone. The hiss of its breath steamed on his calves. It trumpeted frustration.
An instant later, shouts of alarm echoed weirdly along the rock as the pursuing Cursed Ones, emerging into the cavern, discovered the source of the light. The phoenix trumpeted again. Cries shattered everywhere.
“Where the phoenix nests, there can be no attack,” said Two Fingers cryptically, hard to hear over the panic that had broken out among their pursuers.
It was terrible to hear and worse, in a way, when the screams and noises had faded, and the light fled, as the phoenix pursued the pursuers down the tunnel.
After a while, when all they could hear was a steady hissing undertone, Two Fingers relit the torch. Alain ventured uneasily into the cavern, only to find its surface boiling like water. All the snakes had tumbled out of the nest to make a seething sea. There was no way across except to wade through them.
“Ai, mercy!” muttered Laoina, wiping her injured eye. “I think I must die now.”
“They are poison,” said Two Fingers. “This is very bad.”
“I have an idea.” Alain slipped off his armband and fastened it to his staff. “Light all the torches, one for each of you, and walk closely behind me. I’ll clear a path.”
So they went, he in the lead and Adica immediately behind him, then the hounds with Two Fingers right behind and Laoina—brave Laoina!—bringing up the rear. The snakes writhed away from the touch of the armband, and he shoved it among them mercilessly as he broke a path through their ranks. Slender tongues flickered, tasting the air. The hissing of the agitated snakes rose in volume to become like a flood’s roar. Behind, the others thrust and thrust again with the torches, cutting swathes of fire to keep the snakes away. Smoke hazed the cavern.
The boldest of their pursuers had been caught by the phoenix’s first attack. Falling, gut ripped open, he had succumbed to the snakes, dusky skin purpling everywhere and swelling most horribly from their poison. He was a difficult obstacle to cross, because he was already beginning to stink.
Not quickly enough the far tunnel opened before them. Alain shoved Adica past him, then slapped the hounds along after. Two Fingers almost swiped him with his torch as the man leaped past, Laoina at his heels, coughing as she took in a lungful of pitchy smoke. Alain backed after them, poking at the slithering mass, which had already swarmed over the corpse, hiding it.
“Watch out!” cried Laoina, behind him.
His heel hit a soft obstacle. He stumbled, tripped, and fell hard into the grotesque embrace of a mutilated corpse that half blocked the tunnel’s opening.
“Hei!” cried Laoina, stepping up next to him and thrusting her torch forward.
He groped for the haft of his staff, fallen over his knees. His other hand slipped on something cool and wet as he tried to push himself up.
A snake had found shelter in the opened chest cavity of the dead man. It curled free, out of the spume and blood, just as Alain set his hand in its way, trying to get purchase on the bloody ground.
Bit.
Unspeakable pain lanced up his stricken arm.
Laoina tossed the torch to land at Alain’s feet. Snakes writhed away from the flames as she jabbed with her spear, catching the snake midway down its length. With a furious oath, she flung it off the point and back into the darkness of the cavern.
Alain scrambled to his feet, grabbing his staff. They retreated hastily, brought up short at the narrow cleft, where their companions waited beside two more gruesomely-torn corpses.
“The snake has bitten him,” said Laoina curtly.
Two Fingers grabbed Alain’s hand at the wrist. An ugly red swelling had already begun to deform the hand. “For this I have no cure,” he said mournfully.